COVID-19

Medical science has made extraordinary progress over the last few decades, with achievements that have led to an increase in general life expectancy and quality of life. Today, afflictions such as cancer, severe heart failure, polio, or tuberculosis have modern and effective treatments.

What if there was no good news to give us confidence that we could get through the troubles facing us now? What if there was no good news to assure us that we are cherished, loved and supported, that we are not alone?

A global crisis situation, such as that generated by the current pandemic, is a complex picture with many variables bringing high levels of emotional distress. During a pandemic, many people will face a wide range of reactions and emotions, and the psychological impact will often be greater than the medical one.

Early reports out of China showed that elderly people and the chronically ill were most vulnerable to Covid-19. Yet an alarming number of young people in the United States have been hospitalized with severe infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40% of American Covid-19 patients who were hospitalized were under 55 – and 20% were between ages 20...

It will soon be two years since the virus known as COVID-19 started to roam around the world. The sad toll of this disease—over 5 million victims worldwide—is still incomplete, because we are far from seeing an end to the pandemic. It has been the largest public health crisis in the last century.

Many certainties and convictions will be swept away. Many things that we thought were impossible are happening. The day after we have won, it will not be a return to the day before; we will be stronger morally.

While an increasing number of family physicians and private health networks offer online consultations, it's helpful to better understand telemedicine, the opportunities it creates and its limitations.

The fight against the new coronavirus is accompanied by several parallel fights, including the fight against fear, which can turn into panic—one of the most dangerous social phenomena.

They live in five European countries and could not be more different in age, interest or inclination. However, that made no difference. They were all infected. Some were not scared. Others were terrified. They have all gone through an experience that, without exception, has marked their lives.

In recent weeks, we have all experienced a state of unrest. Our eyes have been on the rising numbers of COVID-19 infections, as we try to comply with the restrictions imposed by the state of emergency. But we have also had bright moments, moments we might not have anticipated just a short time ago.

As we know all too well, life can be hard. Even in the best of times, life can be hard. But now this, a pandemic? How are we to cope?

Many families who feared that the new coronavirus would affect their health ended up dreading its effect on something seemingly even more difficult to protect: the well-being of their relationship.

The epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch thinks that social distancing will have to continue, in one way or another, hopefully in milder forms and in correlation with other activities. Lipsitch is the author of a study suggesting that social distancing may be necessary, possibly intermittently, until 2022.

There have now been over 12 million cases of COVID-19 infection globally, and half a million deaths. Researchers are constantly looking for new and better information to reduce the uncertainty around the virus.

Any large-scale phenomenon, such as a pandemic, activates our instinct to preserve our state of being—especially when we feel like we are losing it.